It certainly isn’t the prevailing view.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/food/the-history-of-the-american-diner
https://americaeatsanddrinkstv.com/a-brief-history-how-american-diners-came-to-be/
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New Jersey has entered the chat.
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Holy crap, Jax is still around? That place was there when I was a kid, still there when I was in my early 20s in the early aughts. It always looked like it’d be closing next week. I’m happy it’s still there!
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One of my Chowhound friends stopped at the Phoenicia Diner today.
It made me fall into this rabbit hole.
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What an enticing hole to disappear into!
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Here’s a diner I grew up with and my friends still eat there.
Tenderloins for the win.
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Here’s mine:
Pies, all the breakfasts, and (back when I ate meat) biscuits and gravy for me, linguica (spelling?) and over easy eggs for my dad. He ate there multiple times a week.
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Peterborough Diner in, duh, Peterborough, NH is iconic. Everybody seated knows everybody walking in the door, except us, who are checked out warily. Truly endless coffee. Gargantuan omelets. Superb meatloaf. Yup, we ate there several meals a day over several days. Why change a winning ball game?
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A lifetime ago, I used to there all the time when I was fishing.
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Miss Florence Diner in Florence, MA ticks all the boxes also.
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Moody’s Diner on Rte 1, mid-Coast Maine, is a must stop. Classic diner but also a taste of Down East personality.
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It was a completely different establishment then.
Also the Maine Diner on Route 1 / Post Road in Wells, Maine.
And for south of Boston - a classic 1950s retro diner called Becky’s Diner on Route 28 in Falmouth was always a “gotta go here on Sunday morning” when friends would have their annual summer bash on a Saturday night (pre-COVID). No website, but plenty of info online (FB page only; not updated all that often). They had some financial troubles back in 2019, but new owners took it over. Looks like they’ve added GF items along with the classic diner favorites.
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I clicked on the link and read this dish description -
Avocado Street Corn Toast, made with avocado mash, soft poached egg, lime tofu, heirloom tomatoes and farmers cheese
So not what I remember going to. Sounds too fru fru now.
The old Phoenicia Diner was (in the opinion of my husband - I never ate there) somewhere between bad and mediocre, with a staff that was actively rude to people they didn’t recognize. The new Phoenicia Diner is not frou frou, as these pictures make clear, but it does have some fancier menu items. If you looked at the menu, as I assume you did, you know they also have basic egg breakfasts and burgers in addition to avocado toast. It’s also crazy popular, because it is very good.
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Hmmm. I went there in the 90s to early oughts when I used to fish a lot. Phoenicia Diner when I fished the Esopus. Roscoe Diner when I was on the Beaverkill and Willowemoc. I don’t recall it being bad/mediocre. Just a basic diner where they didn’t know chorizo from creme fraiche. I stopped going when the Catskills began exploding in popularity and became an extension of Williamsburg. Left the mountains for the shore. Now I fish for stripers and blues rather than browns and brookies.
I started going up in 2000, and there were already far better options - Sweet Sue’s and Brio’s, for starters. And I had a soft spot for Bun ‘n’ Cone in Margaretville, which was “classic” in the sense that everything was greasy and the coffee tasted like brown crayon water.
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